Deadly manoeuvres in Russia's game of thrones

After his threats to the Kremlin, can Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin escape Putin's wrath

- Kim Sengupta

After the astonishing and momentous 24 hours in which an apparent coup unfolded in Russia, there is now uncertainty and confusion about who is likely to survive in the Kremlin's deadly game of thrones.

The main man in the arena, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was unheard and unseen since calling off his mutiny – in stark contrast to his frequent and fierce rants about the state of the Ukraine war.

He broke his silence late yesterday with an 11-minute audio message declaring that he and his fighters had only engaged in hostilities in response to the Russian government seeking to close down his mercenary company, Wagner, and merge it with the defence ministry.

“The goal of the march was to not allow the destruction of the Wagner private military company and hold to account the officials who through their unprofessional actions have committed a massive number of errors. Society demanded it,” said Mr Prigozhin.

He was not seeking regime change, he insisted. “It was not our goal to overthrow the regime. We stopped at that moment when it became clear that much blood would be spilt. That’s why we believe that the demonstration of what we were planning to do was enough. Our decision to turn back had two factors: we didn’t want to spill Russian blood. Secondly, we marched as a demonstration of our protest.”

But Mr Prigozhin also acknowledged that his troops had killed Russian airmen during their advance, saying they “regretted that they were required to carry out strikes against aircraft but they were hitting our forces with bombs and rocket strikes”. He boasted that the move into Russia was a “masterclass” in how Russia should have carried out its invasion of Ukraine which failed to achieve its goal of taking Kyiv.